they must need bears

Climbing yesterday, figured out what I was doing wrong on that traverse (Did you know there are two footholds at the part I got stuck at? Because, er. I didn't. And I was using the higher and further-away one, which got me all wrong-footed.), got past it, and got stuck where I had been stuck before. As near as I can tell, the next move is "Stick your left foot in your ear and then stand up on it."

Maybe Wednesday.

However, I did manage three other 5.7s, two of which I had done before, but one of which was brand new to me and I got it on the first try, albeit with two falls and some dogging on the rope. I think I can do it comfortably next time, though, though I already know I will still have to rest on the overhang. This excites me, because it means there are three 5.7s in the gym I can do comfortably enough that I don't kill myself on them. Which means I can probably mostly-retire that 5.6 I've been doing mostly so that I didn't have to stop after two or three routes, because god knows I need the endurance training and the exercise.

I came home from last Wednesday's climbing with a mystery bruise in the palm of my left hand, where the ring finger and pinky run into it. It wasn't particularly sore, though there is one achy, firm-feeling, paler spot in the middle there. It seems to be fading out, though, and it doesn't impede my grip strength, mobility, or fine control, so I think I'm not going to fuss about it. Probably just trained a tendon on that (%&*(^)*&^ traverse.

With a 6 mile hike Sunday and a 4.5 mile walk today (After the hike and the climbing, I decided to give my calves and toes a break from running) which included two miles under pack, as I was bringing my groceries home, I'm feeling pretty all right with the world.

Also, hey, did you know that when nothing's screwing with my biochemistry, I'm halfway sane? It's pretty exciting, is what.

174.9 miles to Lothlorien. I'm climbing to Redhorn Pass, fearing snow. (With good reason!) Memo to me: Bear, you suck! Practice guitar today.

And now, I am going to go terminate a bagel with lox, with extreme prejudice. And then maybe read some more Elizabeth Moon and do some actual work of my actual own.

I missed pixel-stained technopeasant wretch day (observed). However, since you can find a great deal of my work online for free here at my webpage, and of course there's the Shadow Unit project, in all its guiltware glory, which is not just me but also Amanda Downum, Sarah Monette, Emma Bull, and Will Shetterly!

---

So I managed my first 5.7 without a single fall yesterday. I'm pretty proud of myself. It was on the slab wall, but I did it. Also, my endurance is improving--I can keep coming back at something now after I've failed it repeatedly, so I got a second 5.7. (I've sent this one before, but I did it much better this time. Though with several rests, and a bunch of falls at the crux.) I need to go back and try that pink 5.7 again (the first one I ever got, which I still can't do without rests and a couple of falls) and also the blue route I haven't quite got, even though I think I know how to do it. Knowing and being able, alas, are not always the same thing. (Also, there's a black 5.7 that I couldn't doo before because the overhang kicked my ass, but I'm stronger now, so I want to try it again. It's not a technically difficult route: the rating is mostly for RAAAAAAAAAAR!, and my RAAAAAAAAAAR! is improving.)

But there's a 5.8 Alisa wants me to try Monday, so it's possible the other hard wall I'm working on will wait until Wednesday. I am scared of the 5.8. It has an overhang and the entire top half is smearing up a wall where the only handholds are this crack you have to lay back on.

La.

There may be climbing outdoors on Sunday. That would be fun.

(Apparently, I have accidentally started something of a climbing renaissance among my writer friends, which I think is pretty cool. We are the buff chicks of SFF. Also, the new face thereof.)

---

Spring lasted a week this year, and I was in Michigan for it. The plum tree under my bedroom window is in full bloom, and violets and dandelions and tulips are all over the place. The Bradford pears are nearly over; the magnolias are already dropping blossoms. A mulberry along my running route is putting out first leaves, and the lilacs have heavy clusters of buds. I'm going to have to start running earlier, because it's already too hot by 8.

3.5 miles Tuesday (I only ran about 1.5 of those and walked the rest) and 2 miles today (ran 1 mile, walked 1. My lungs do not like the pollen and humdidity. Foolish lungs.) 204.9 miles to Lothlorien.

---

Meanwhile, I am reading "Endgames" and working on "Overkill," and working on the page proofs for All the Windwracked Stars. So there is actual professional work-related progress going on, which is a nice thing. Then after that a novelette for a Secrit Projekt (I promise I will tell you all about it as soon as I can) and a novella for Subterranean. And then maybe I will have gotten enough distance on Chill to come back to it with some Mad Skillsh and make it a Book That Works.

Other work that awaits me in the next year--rewriting By the Mountain Bound and One-Eyed Jack & the Suicide King, and then rewriting The Sea thy Mistress.

I'm having a very hard time seeing anything positive in my writing currently, which is frustrating and hard. Mostly, it all feels quite banal and amateurish to me. Flaccid, even. Where is the muscular prose of yore? Where is my ability to characterize obliquely and well? I feel confident when editing other people's work, but of my own all I can say is Dreadful! Dreadful! DREADFUL!

It's hard to write when you can't see what's working anymore. It gets in the way of that "carve off everything that doesn't look like an elephant" thing when the elephant is no longer visible to your inner eye.

Five random things make a post:

1) My story, "Your Collar," is live and free at the Spring issue of Subterranean. It's set in the same universe as "Orm the Beautiful," but with a different monster. I think there will be at least one more story in this setting, but I have not written it yet.

2) I hadn't known, but apparently A Companion to Wolves is the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award winner for Best Fantasy Novel. Other RT awards in SF&F went to Pat Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind and John Scalzi's The Last Colony.

3) I went for a run today, but I did it too late in the day and gave myself a sunshine headache. 206.9 miles to Lothlorien. The road has begun climbing into the mountains. Soon I will be in the Redhorn Pass. Oops. Bad planning.

4) I forgot to eat anything yet today except a lassi. This may be contributing to the headache. As may a critical lack of caffeine.

5) About a thousand words on "Overkill" this morning. I need to go back and poke at it some more once I have made some tea and eaten some food.

---

Also, I'm home safe. The Presumptuous Cat is still lecturing me about what a bad human I are. And every time I drive through Nanticoke, PA, I think it should be Manticore, PA.

The crocuses are over. The hyacinths have begun.

Highlights of this morning's run brought a guy using an atlatl to play fetch with his golden retriever at the dog park. I kind of sucked today: I ran the first 8/10s of a mile and walked the other 2/10s (in 16:16 despite a long wait for traffic at one point, and quitting a block short of goal because my calves and arches hurt a lot--the first half of the route is uphill, which is one reason why it's generally slower) and then I added a half-mile loop around the playground, which I walked in 9:01, but I wasn't pushing hard. Stretched for five minutes, and I mean to do intervals for the mile back, but I wound up only doing two, because my arches, calves, and hips hurt so much. Still made it in 17 minutes, though.

Sometimes, there is a time to respect what your 36 1/2 year old body is telling you. And sometimes what it is telling you is "Now cut that out."

215.2 miles to Lothlorien. In Middle Earth, it's very early on the morning of Jan 9. Soon Gandalf and Frodo will notice a low-flying Nazgul.

I am still showing no signs of regrowing anything like a brain, though I am thoroughly bored. (I never know what to do with myself when I'm not writing. It ennui seems to be a necessary part of the creative process, however: out of fallow time, things grow.)

And now I have to pack for Penguicon, and tomorrow's semi-epic drive.

In the last two days on my morning constitutional, the signs of spring are everywhere. Yesterday I heard a woodpecker playing "Moby Dick" up by Elizabeth Park (both coming and going; she must have found a good spot). I've seen fat squirrels playing tag, people exercising dogs large and small, roofers and lawn services, a sparrow disappearing into the eaves of a lovely Victorian bearing a flowering twig in her claws, another sparrow puffed up fat in a small bare tree. The maples are covered in a red froth of tiny blossoms. Today two magnolias are starting, one pink and one snow-white, neither fully open yet. Soon, I must extend my route to take me through the park, because soon the park will be flowering.

It was rainy overnight, but it's lightly overcast with gray sunlight now.

Speaking of said constitutional, I can call it a run without irony today, as I jogged the whole two miles (sparing a two-block warm-up and cool-down.) On the way out, I hit a nice sustainable easy lope and just stuck with it (never underestimate the importance of finding your stride.) I felt good enough at my turning point that after I stretched out and breathed for five minutes, I ran back the same way. I'm adapting--my left knee twinged for the first half mile, but I ran it out, and I felt good enough in terms of cardio to have kept going at the end, but my arches had been killing me for a quarter mile so I gave it up. Still, the shoes are finally breaking in, thank God, and my feet are getting used to it.

16:40 on the way out, 16:06 on the way back. 221.7 mile to Lothlorien.
Go team me.

In other news, very nice Washington Post review of Dust.

A brisk ~3 mile walk along the river bluffs with ashacat and Sunil yesterday afternoon (when it was gorgeous out, even a little too warm for my long-sleeved t-shirt) and my alleged run this morning means its 223.9 miles to Lothlorien. I'm more than halfway there--In Middle Earth, it's January 8th, and I'm headed toward the ill-fated pass through the mountains. Moria soon! Beware Balrogs!

This morning, despite the treesex-generated slugs hibernating in my sinuses, I ran the first mile of my route--and actually ran it, as opposed to the geriatric shuffle I have been doing. Of course, I had to do the last block as a sprint, because I was pretty much out of glycogen and stored oxygen at that point, and then I spent the first three minutes of my recovery period flat on my back, alternately heaving and giggling. At least it's kind of rainy out, which might help settle the pollen. I walked back rather than doing intervals, to reward myself for a good effort on the way out. Go team me.

There. I swallowed my live frog today. Now I can shower and make myself some tea and cereal and work on page proofs until my dinner guest arrives.
Not sure yet if I'll try for a run tomorrow morning, but it definitely has to be a yoga day. I'm stiff and sore.

But my feet aren't killing me--though the awesome Amie (my massage therapist) was laughing at me yesterday about the tightness in my right arch. Her now ritual question when I go in to see her is "What have you broken this week?"

While I'm pimping awesome local businesses, through the offices of taichigeek, I've discovered a local organic chocolatier in the Manchester parkade. (Conveniently right across the street from Hall's Arrow.) It's called Divine Treasures Chocolates, and I can seriously vouch for the Grand Marnier orange creme (which has a little piece of chewy candied orange peel on top) and the peppermint patties. (I also have some tropical fruit bark, but I have not tried that yet.)

Also, congratulations to stillsostrange, who became yet another casualty of the hive mind client of Fancy Agent Jennifer Jackson yesterday.

Playlist for today: Chris Isaak and ZZ Top. Apparently we are in the mood for songs about nasty girls who know what they want.

And now, into the shower.

Never has the subtitle of this blog (it's a great life if you don't weaken) felt more appropriate. Jeepers.

The progress notes will be informal today.

I was going to give myself a day off from running today, but I woke up at 6 am raring to go, so I got up and drank some water and answered my email and put my shoes on. I jogged the entire first mile (at a crawl, mind you) with the exception of the first two blocks, which I walked as a warmup. It was cold out--widget on my taskbar says 28 degrees F--and since I was out there by 7:20, the light was beautiful. Still, a whole mile! My cardio was great at the end of it, too--I took five minutes to stretch and recover, but I didn't really need them. I did make myself stretch for the whole five minutes though, temptations aside.

And then I ran/walked back on fire hydrant intervals (five of them) and took the last three blocks as a cool down. Time out: 16 minutes. Time back: 13 minutes. So when I say that joggy bit was a crawl, it was a crawl.

I was pretty ineffectual at the climbing gym last night--four routes, including a 5.7 I didn't finish. There's a traverse out from under a corner that is killing me. Also, I did a 5.5 with a small overhang that was the first route I ever sent, way back wen, and did not fall off the place where I always fall off. (Yeah, it's only a 5.5, but it's a 5.5 that involves dragging yourself out from under a corner with only one foothold, which is in a bad place.) Scraped up my right arm pretty good falling off a climb on the slab wall, but got back on the horse and finished it. Go team me.

The climbs helped break up the lingering anxiety. Some of it was back this morning, but I'm hoping the run will have taken it out of me. And I have PT today, and ashacat and I are going to see Jonathan Coulton tonight, so--those will also help.

On to the stuff that may actually interest some of you. I talked to my agent last night and got permission to suspend work on Chill for a while. Whether this means I won't make the June 1 deadline or not, I don't know yet. We'll see what happens in May. But I'm giving the book the rest of April to percolate, in the hopes that that will help me work through some of my issues surrounding it.

In further proof that it is, in fact, this damned novel that is killing me, I woke up this morning not only in a mood to write, but with a head full of stuff for the scene in "Ballistic" that I was swearing only yesterday I could in no wise write, for lo I was a burnout case and probably should be taken out behind the chemical sheds and put out of everyone's misery. I also figured out in the car last night (I should really list the Moby Smurfberry as my co-author, I do so much thinking in that buggy) one of the things that is turning Chill into such a fucking nightmare of a novel to write, why I keep glancing off its surface, and why I feel like I can't get into any of the characters at all.

Because the thematic arc that I find myself swearing up and down the book doesn't actually have is there, buried, and it's all about a bunch of people who grew up in a tremendously abusive, exploitive household, and the ways those experiences have affected them.

So here I am, writing all these damaged beauties, and no wonder my subconscious really doesn't want to let me inside their heads right now, considering what the last two years of my own headspace have entailed.

Stupid books as therapy. I dudn't want therapy. I just wanted a nice block of flats rollicking adventure novel.

Permission not to be working on the manuscript feels like somebody pulled a giant wodge of Kleenex out of my brain. Stupid book I am not ready to write yet. Why can't you be more like your brother?

And hey, I only have about 150 pages left to write. When it comes unstuck, I can do that standing on my head, right? :-P

Anyway, I have three sets of page proofs this moth, and two conventions, so It's not like there won't be enough work to keep me busy. And maybe the b&#k can use that time productively, to sort out its issues, so when we try to get back together there's a chance we can make this thing work.

233.9 miles to Lothlorien

And now I am going to go take off this sports bra before it cuts off circulation to my brain, and shower, and practice guitar before I go to PT.

Last night, ashacat and I went to the venerable and redoubtable Eastern Mountain Sports, a local New England outdoor sports equipment Emporium--notable for employing a dedicated and knowledgeable assortment of ski bums, climbing bums, hiking bums, kayaking bums, etc.--to buy her shoes and harness.

Meanwhile, I've been making noises for a while about cancelling my gym membership (BORING) and taking up running again, in the full knowledge that this will be a process full of misery and despair.

See, I used to be a runner. I was never a very competitive runner, because I don't have the build for speed, but I loved trail running, and I was adequate at middle distances. (If I were a football player, I would probably make a pretty good halfback, let's put it that way. Good Eastern European stock: "When ox die, harness wife to plow.")

I suck at jogging, mind you. I'm not good enough at pacing myself to jog. I like to run.

I had a lot of joint problems in high school and college, and while I could still manage endurance sports like racewalking and hiking (at least until the bout with mono), my knees and hips wouldn't take the impact of running. (It turned out not to be lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or half a dozen other things, and eventually I walked out with a diagnosis of juvenile onset osteoarthritis, a naproxen prescription, and a cane. These days, they'd probably call it fibromyalgia. However, since it went into spontaneous remission in my twenties after a heavy course of antibiotics for a lung infection, I now harbor suspicions that what I had was chronic Lyme disease. Anyway, that's all backstory.)

Well, EMS is in the throes of their winter clearance, and what with one thing and another, while the ashacat was trying on climbing shoes, I walked out with the pair of North Face trail runners that were marked down almost into my price range, and two pairs of Smartwool running socks. (I also got two pairs of hiking socks, because dammit, there will be hiking this summer.)

These are very silly shoes. The innovative lacing system is, well, a winch. And a bunch of very fine cables run through the body of the shoe, all of which tighten when you twist the little wheel on the heel. Silly, yes.

But wow, do they fit. And I think the socks weigh more.

So this morning, I did something I haven't done in twenty years. I got up, put on my workout pants and the sort of scary-ass sports bra a DD-girl needs for running in, put on my socks and shoes, grabbed a t-shirt, put my hair in a ponytail, and went for a two-mile run in the rain.

It wasn't an unbroken two mile run, mind you--I've been hitting the treadmill and the ski machine at the gym, but that's not a thing like actually getting out and running over slate sidewalks in the early morning mist. But I managed six intervals (I didn't time--I just ran until my chest and arches hurt too much, and then I stopped and walked until I could run again. Got to the halfway point, stopped for five minutes of stretching and begging to die, and turned around and came back.

Two miles in twenty-five minutes, not counting the five minutes of stretching. Not a great time, by any means, but a beginning. And I have a 5.2-mile route mapped out for Eventually. (It's my walking route when I am going for a walk to go for a walk, not as an adjunct to errands downtown, so I know it well.)

So I ran this morning in the rain, through the old part of town with the ancient trees and the slate sidewalks. And I'm already looking out the window at the rain, wishing I were back out there.

Tomorrow, I may see if I can do it again.

240.7 miles to Lothlorien

And now I need to go take a shower, start some laundry, and get to work on this book I'm supposedly writing.

I think she was a middle distance runner.
The translation wasn't clear.

Another sentence desucking, in passing:

That would make them the more challenging to work with.

That would make the work challenging.

The work would be challenging.

1634 words on Bone & Jewel Creatures tonight. Knocking off for the evening.
300.8 miles to Lothlorien

Mean things: amputation, necrosis, necromancy

( And more of what passes for writers hard at work.... )

And then they sat down to dinner, and were still there four days of writing later.


2,789 words tonight, to finish the current scene in "Overkill." Longest scene ever.

Also, got my arm twisted to write an anothology story by next August, today. In my copious spare time. Still if I can get "Overkill" finished, that's my secrit projekt commitment handled until s2, except the incidental stuff.

Today's adventure in sentence-level writing:

He would not let the rest of the team know his palms were greased with sweat.

His palms were greased with sweat.

Sweat greased his palms.

Yep. That's pretty much how every sentence I write gets written these days. Is it any wonder that the process is a little exhausting?

I'm glad I laid down good words today, because there were none yesterday and I suspect there will be none tomorrow, given how the schedule is shaping up.

---

The Precious! It is mine! Yesssssss!

Alas, the reason that the schedule will not be shaping up is not because the mailman brought me the Man From U.N.C.L.E. DVD box set today, though he did.

My preccciioooussssss.

I can only imagine how the fans who have been waiting since 1964 to see some of these episodes again, uncut, must feel.

---

In the house of dust, roll yourself in ashes.

A pretty good review of Dust is up here. I'm still not writing the books Paul Di Filippo wishes I was writing (no Nazis in this one either) but at least my ranging shots are getting closer.

Speaking of Dust, it's a real book now. I know it is because the UPS guy brought me a case of copies today, which means that they are lso probably at A Fine Bookstore Near You. Amazon won't ship until the official release date, though, so if you honestly can't wait, hit a brick-and-mortar, or call up your local independent SFF bookstore and see if they have them.

---

I come to praise Caesar, not to bury him.


And because cristalia did this, and I love it:

I come to praise gregvaneekhout, because he posts videos of jerboa.

I come to praise panjianlien, for she is richly deserving and is not praised enough.

I come to praise buymeaclue, because she reminds me of the need for persistence. And that learning things is hard.

I come to praise coffeeem, because she makes me snarf tea with snarky comments about Gordon Sumner. And also because she costs me money with her excellent taste in music.

I come to praise yendi, who finds giant cookware sales so I don't have to.

I come to praise truepenny, who sends me emails that make me laugh while I am pecking away at the longest scene ever. And who doesn't let me do things the easy way.

I come to praise jmeadows, who is a good enough Christian to make me wish I had the faith gene.

I come to praise thecoughlin, who works very hard at being good people, and taking care of those who she can.

I come to praise ashacat, who makes me work harder than I would without her.

I do not come to praise the Presumptuous Cat, who for some reason MUST sleep ON my left arm today. This does not improve my typing or my tendinitis.

There might be more later, but that's a good list for today.

---

Baby, it's  long way down.

So yesterday I failed to climb everything I tried. This is in part because I have moved up to 5.7s, but the last one I tried was the first wall I ever sent, and I was so tired I couldn't make it, even though I could do the moves. I was just up there flailing and scrabbling and trying to hold on, and it wasn't working at all.

Le sigh. We're going again tomorrow, though, and my belaying class is in January. And then I will be a full-fledged member of the gang--albeit totally the new meat, and lousy with it--safe (we hope) to hold somebody's rope and earn my keep.

Climbing is hard work. So hard, in fact, that I'm not sure I can do it with any kind of effectiveness after two days of rest. Although that is rest punctuated by the usual gym workouts. And there was a yoga class after climbing last night, which was a good yoga class indeed--not very tricky poses, but she took us way deep and we held them forever. Or failed to hold them, some of us, being tired from all that failing to climb. Not me, of course! :-P

The local Wallingford studio is trying to drum up business, it seems. I really liked the instructor who came out (Christine, who as you can see is a climber).

This would be easier if I weighed 130 pounds, you know that? Of course, when I was a middle-distance runner, I weighed in at 155, and that was when I was a freshman in high school. So the odds of me ever having enough bone and organs removed to get under 160 again are pretty slim.

On the other hand, it is sort of making me hope I drop some weight soonish, because not only will every pound I don't have to haul up Kilimanjaro be a pound I, well, don't have to haul up Kilimanjaro, but it's also a pound I don't have to haul up cliffs and walls.

316.3 miles to Lothlorien. Still not King.

State of the Revision:

Page 66 of 657. 149,647 words. 9,647 words to cut.

447.9 miles to Lothlorien.

Yeah, I got nothing this morning. I'm blowing off the gym to do laundry and edit this book and take the P.C. to my Mom's place for the week, and to finish my VP reading, because it did not all get done last night.

So, thus, I give you interesting things to read elsewhere.

rezendi goes to San Quentin.

Also, via supergee, Stephen Fry on fame, fan entitlement, celebrity bad behavior, and a million other related things.

I think, as skzbrust once said to me, that SF writers have exactly the right amount of fame. I can always find somebody to talk to on the Internets, occasionally nice people send me email (Yes, I owe email. And I owe things sent to people. And I will do it after VP, because I SUCK.) and nobody ever recognizes me on the street. Or, I presume, masturbates to my author photo.

Score!

Hey, I'm in Rivendell. Did you know they have internet here?

Actually, I overshot a little, and am about a mile along the road to Lothlorien, but don't tell anybody. I'm enjoying the Elvish company.

461 miles to Lothlorien!

stwish, through the offices of the Recovering Hippie Underground Railroad, has sent north (1) one banjo as my official early 36th birthday present. Somebody tell skzbrust.

Apparently the theory is that I will be less terrifying with a banjo than with a guitar? I'm really not too sure about this. (cristalia and stillsostrange can now vouch for what a lousy guitar player I am.)

In any case, I have to leave in an hour to retrieve the alleged musical instrument from an old family friend, who will no doubt have many embarrassing stories of when I was in diapers.

But I did write 1006 words today, and it's only another 59.8 miles to Rivendell.

In other news, the latest installation of Bears Examining is up for the fall issue of Subterranean. And you can play the virtual glass armonica here, if you hate your cats. And I got my contributor's copy of the latest issue of Fictitious Force and also my copy of YBSF # whatever it is. Wooo!

For stillsostrange, Jill Sobule covers "Don't Let Us Get Sick," which I can't remember if I got through coffeeem or the_red_shoes.

A paen in honor of getting older....

NOT work safe.

Man, I seriously overdid it at the gym today and yesterday. I'm waddling.

93.5 miles to Rivendell, though. And the possibility exists that if I keep this up, I might be in shape for Kilimanjaro in a year and a half....